Ideas to take home from Chelsea Flower Show 2012

Rosa ‘Comte de Chambord’ growing through a hazel dome in the Bicentenary Garden

Chelsea Flower Show is always about lavish displays, fantasy and drama, but if you ignore the noise above and focus in on the quieter details of the gardens, there’s often a surprising number of features you can copy at home, says Sally Charrett…

Coming up roses
Take Arne Maynard’s Bicentenary Garden for Laurent-Perrier. Its topiary trees, pleached copper-beech hedge and elegant limestone terrace are enough to take your breath away, but it’s the gorgeous pink roses growing through hazel domes that really steal the show.

This simple but genius idea is easy-to-replicate at home. It will not only create an attractive feature in summer, but will add some structure to winter borders, too. Arne has used Rosa ‘Comte de Chambord’, a hardy, compact shrub with fragrant double blooms – ideal for small gardens.

The domes can be fashioned from pliable hazel twigs, pushed into the ground and bent over to create a bell-shape and tied together with garden string. Weave through thinner twigs to create a basket-like finish. These are best made earlier in the year when coppiced hazel stems are at their greenest and most bendy.